The idea is to utilize Ryan’s ability to shoot and find teammates. It may not stick, but Coach Randy Carlyle clearly isn’t afraid to move some pieces around and might try it when the team opens a two-game preseason trip Friday at San Jose.

“I think when you have skilled players, and he’s one of our most skilled players, we think it would be foolish not to put him in as many offensive situations as possible,” Carlyle said.

“We’ll give it a whirl.”

Ryan played that point position briefly in the American Hockey League, so it’s not entirely new. Ideally he would have defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky man the right side and play as a “rover” with Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and Teemu Selanne down low.

A power play with Getzlaf, Perry, Selanne, Visnovsky and Ryan? Now that’s the kind of results you’d like to see from a mad experiment.

That being said, I’ve often been critical of the practice of placing forwards on the point during the power play. While that might give you a boost in offensive firepower, it also subjects you to shorthanded goals. Zupke points out that the Ducks gave Ryan Getzlaf a try at the point but nixed that plan when the shorties became too much to handle.

Ryan has some experience playing defense, though, so this idea might hold a little more weight. The team will miss Scott Niedermayer’s “roving” presence on the power play, so you cannot blame them as they look to fill that void. If Ryan can be responsible enough in his own end, putting him at the point might just be crazy enough to work.

It could just as easily be a quickly forgotten training camp experiment too, though.